Since the city and the GNWT both seem unable to come up with a reasonable emergency plan and a set of rules for the NWT, perhaps it’s time for the public to pressure or embarrass them into doing something.
Just imagine if a rule or law was passed for the city or for the entire territory that if the temperature goes below or above certain temperatures, a Stage 1 emergency is declared, and the city must open heating or cooling facilities downtown and uptown for those in need. Also, if the Outreach vehicle isn’t up to the job for some reason, the city or GNWT will provide a vehicle on loan. It’s not like they don’t have extra vehicles just sitting around.
Also, they should set up a Stage 1 to 5 approach so that as conditions worsen or the cold snap continues for days, more measures are implemented. Now that would be a plan, and if it was part of a law then the GNWT, the city and communities would have to comply.
It would be mandatory that someone in the city or GNWT track and document all the problems that occur and then rules could be put in place to handle them. Every year when we get a cold snap, some people with propane heating run into problems because propane gels at around -40 C and when this happens, the furnaces stop running. So, it should be a rule that all propane tanks or vessels installed in the North must come with heaters and a plug-in so that they can be plugged in at, let’s say, -35 C.
When I lived at Northlands, I discovered all sorts of things about trailers. One was that the way they were set up was just asking for trouble. One of the first things I did was run the water line straight into the trailer and then ran it inside the trailer to prevent freeze ups. I also discovered that there was a dead airspace between the bathroom and the kitchen. At -40 C, I had to open the cupboard in the bathroom and one in the kitchen to create an airflow which stopped the freeze ups. That was a design flaw in the trailer I had, but I am sure others had the same problem.
If someone tracked these things, then fixes to the problems would also be discovered and they could be implemented. On social media, there were lots of issues people reported where their apartments or townhouses were running into problems. Everything from windows icing up, pipes freezing, to not enough heat in the unit. Most of these problems have fixes and orders should be issued to landlords to rectify the problems before the next cold snap. It’s called being proactive and not just ignoring the problems and hoping for the best.
We have been living in the North for a long time now and it is time to make things better. There should be little courses or manuals for newcomers on how to live better and more comfortably up here.
When I turn on the news and see that some Canadian cities are still sending in the police to tear apart and destroy some encampments the homeless have erected to survive winter, I am reminded of stories I read about the Great Depression. The same when I see homeless people trying to survive a cold snap. It appears we have completely forgotten our history. We can surely do better and there should be rules in place forcing the various levels of government to make improvements.
We have a newly-elected city council and MLAs, so why aren’t they speaking up and demanding some fundamental changes to the way our system operates? If a law were passed that at -35 C city hall and the legislature had to open up to provide for the homeless or people in apartments with no heat, you can bet things would change a whole lot faster.